Hi,
I am living in a country in Europe where it is impossible to source root bark without the possibility of getting into trouble.
I was wondering whether there is any plant worth cultivating. Due to the cold winters mimosa and acacia could just be planted in pots which would result in small plants and doesnt seem to be worth the effort considering that the also needs to be sufficient space indoors for the winter.
Phalaris seems to grow natively but from what I read so far is everything else than ideal for extraction (please correct me if wrong and if possible point me to a good tek).
So I was wondering if there is any other plant worth trying to cultivate.

Thanks for helping.

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How cold does your climate get?

With the Phalaris grasses, a lot depends on the exact species. I think brachystachys is one that has a good chance of being consistently high(ish) yielding. It is annual, so if you cultivate it, you should let some of it grow out and collect seeds each year. During that one season, you should be able to cut it a number of times. You probably wanna invest in a decent wheatgrass juicer to help with extractions if you go the grass route.

I have some Desmanthus illinoensis in my garden, it survived last winter, and hopefully will survive the upcoming one too. It is the root bark that has the DMT, which is a bit of a bummer.

You might be able to grow a chacruna (Psychotria viridis). It likes high humidity and hates cold. It's not a great option for extractions, but could provide you with enough leaves for a few doses of ayahuasca per year. If you wanna go with this one, buy an established plant. It is hard and slow to grow from seed. I've had 0% germination rate with chacruna seeds so far, from a few different sources. I'm not saying don't try seeds, but don't rely on them.

With Mimosa hostilis and Acacia confusa, we also need the root bark. They are not frost tolerant at all, so we have to keep them in pots, and that means not many thick roots unless maybe if you have absurdly huge pots. I actually harvested a bit of roots from both species this autumn (plants had 3 summers, i tried to do the cuts such that they will recover, wish me luck). I haven't extracted them yet, but even if the whole roots had 1%, the harvested amount from both plants combined would result in less than a gram of dmt after the first 3 years.

There are a number of Acacias that have DMT in the phyllodes (leaves) though, such as acuminata and courtii. I found seeds of both on ebay. After a few failures, i managed to sprout a bunch of acuminatas last year. Most of them are still alive They're also not winter hardy, but since we don't need their roots, i think they're better candidates for culture in pots. I kept all the phyllodes that fell off, it's not much yet but i think next year (3rd summer) should become a practical amount for my crude extraction skills (30g+ starting material) - then i'll see if they already have content in young trees of less than 3 years.

All in all, i'd say if your goal is to make like 0.5g-1g of DMT per year from self grown plants, it should be possible here in Europe. It might require some trial and error, a square meter (or a few) of space, and a few years before first extraction except with grasses.

Thanks for your answers. I suppose growing a minos and / acacia is more for decoration in my case then.
It is a pitty the situation is like that
I suppose it is best to focus on tve good things like mushrooms being easy to cultivate than getting upset of the very difficult situation of sourcing dmt.
Have a great weekend everyone

Perhaps it would be good to make a list of frost tolerant plants. Many acacia are frost tolerant, but there are simply so many acacias... if I could short list the winter hardy ones, I could look around for papers and try to figure out which one's are more reasonable to experiment with. Same goes for desmanthus and Desmodium plants.

I'm growing Illinoiensis right now, but the seedlings are growing very slowly, probably because they are indoors and not getting that much sunlight. But they can still be a viable source if one can grow a significant number of them. Germinating the seeds is quite easy if you soak them in near boiling water for 10 minutes.

As for phalaris, I haven't been able to crystallize anything from the extracts. It's been over a year since I last experimented with them, but I think even the addition of benzoic acid did not yield anything. I haven't been able to experiment with them any further, but I'll get back to it next summer.

All things considered, psychotria seems a good option if one could either build a humidity tent or acclimatize them to lower humidity.

How cold does it get in your region, yentzee? And what are the summers like?

You may yet see success with acacia phyllodes; another grass to look into besides phalaris might be digitaria - and also maybe Elymus repens (anecdotally).

One more thing to consider is the joy of cactus cultivation - the best time to start with any of these things is already.

Thanks a lot for your answers.
In the winter it can get down to -10 if it gets really really cold but it wont stay like this for more than 1-2 days in a row. But we experience temperatures below 0 degrees Celsius on a regular basis in the winter. In the summer temperatures go up to 30 sometimes 35 degrees Celsius.

I just started some cacti from seeds (peyote, san pedro, peruvian torch in small indoor greenhouses) and have lots of experience regarding mushroom cultivation inside monotubs. With the cacti I want to start cloning the ones I already (not the recent seedlings but having san pedro I kept for decoration purposes) have but having never used a cactus so far I am not 100% certain if this is something I want to do on a regular basis. The experience taking quite a long time and the work that goes into making a tea out of it seem to be not ideal for more frequent use. I love mushrooms and don't need to worry about supply but well regarding DMT I am dependent on vendors which of course carries the risk of impurities and makes consumption with anything else than an emesh quite a pricey thing. Also those vendors being professionals also selling things I do not agree with makes it challenging.

The alternative species you mentioned seem promising in terms of availability. I will investigate regarding possible extraction. If not I suppose the best way to go forward is to get a fake ID and have it delivered to a collection point.

Thank you very much for your help

Asoklutely there is and as downwardsfromzero pointed out the time is now. Phalaris has advantage in growth rate compared to most sources. .. it would be worth seeing if you can source seed from people who grow confirmed actives.

I'll chime in on acacia as I know more about that..

The following are all very good candidates and very pretty species for the garden.. I would personally look for an Acacia that does well in your climate and has active phyllodes.. this way you can avoid scraping bark from trunk or roots and your tree will appreciate the odd prune.

.. floribunda and maidenii are strain dependent so good to keep in mind sourcing the right seed. They both can have good amounts of DMT in their phyllodes.

Acacia floribunda - healthy yield from phyllodes around 0.4% ..so some healthy pruning will provide you with what your looking for. Hardy and fast growing.. tolerates frost and dry conditions. It adapts pretty well to most climates and puts out a lot of foliage. For the above reasons I look at the active type as the best all rounder for cultivation for those not based in Australia

Acacia acuminata - 3 known varieties - the narrow phyllode, small seed and broad phyllode sub species. Very high DMT content in phyllodes (around 1% ..!) narrow phyllode has the cleanest alkaloid profile .. broad phyllode has a more complex alkaloid profile. Slow growing.

Acacia maidenii - the right strain has good amounts in the phyllodes.. around 0.6% .. known to contain DMT and NMT

Acacia obtusifolia - much slower growing but is a gorgeous plant worth growing. Variable yields .. up to 0.6% .. sometimes primarily DMT and other times/strains a more variable alkaloid profile

Acacia confusa - fast growing and hardy. Phyllode content unknown but I suspect pretty good. High yielding.. extract contains fairly equal amounts of DMT and NMT (around 2%)

Hmm very interesting! Somehow i was under the impression confusa phyllodes weren't usable. But maybe all i heard was about brews, where the presence of other compounds may be problematic.

I'll collect all the dropped phyllodes that the wind hasn't blown away (hopefully 50g+), and maybe prune some twigs off my "larger" specimens for fresh phyllodes. Now i wanna know

I don't think they tolerate frost, but other than that they're super easy to grow here.

Acacia floribunda will take temps of -7c or 19f. Climate zone 9 in the US. Pretty much very southern US only. Don't know how Europe does climate zones, but if -10c is as low as it goes, you might squeak through. You can plant near a house, south facing, and other tricks to get a slightly better microclimate.

I would be interested in the dependability of Desmanthus leptolobus (or more info on illinoensis)

Looks like most of Europe is zones 5-7. https://www.gardenia.net...european-hardiness-zones , with only Spain, Italy, Greece and Turkey having regions in zone 9 or higher.

Where I live (seems to be zone 7 in that image), it rarely gets super cold, but we have a lot of rain during the cold half of the year, sometimes temps don't go above freezing for some weeks, sometimes there's snow that takes days or weeks to melt again.

more research really needs to be done on phyllodes.. there have been very few published tests done so far. I say they are likely active because most acacia that have DMT in the bark also have good quantities in the phyllodes. I suspect the root bark thing was partly carried over from Mimosa hostilis..
I look forward to hearing your results and hope that others growing it undertake the test too! The trees would be a much more sustainable source if their phyllodes were used.. either way I'm sure that the twig is fine as it has bark on it too... probably a little lower yield than rootbark but higher than phyllodes.

nexus member KloudqQ7 said they didn't have good results with phyllodes..


but its worth noting that extraction method may need tweaking for phyllodes.. and their method wasn't revealed. In Australia fresh phyllodes used in extraction have been sometimes found to yield almost nothing, while dry ground phyllodes "unlock" the tryptamine content much better. I'm not exactly sure why this is but nen888 reckons they somehow become trapped in fresh/coarser material. Confusa phyllodes are quite stiff and leathery.. so its likely relevant here.

my inch tall floribunda seedlings managed to get through winter here with nights getting to -8/9 degrees celsius. Wouldn't be surprised if more matured specimens arent bothered by colder

Keep us posted on that. Our coldest temp last year was -16c. Coldest ever was -31c, but it doesn't get as cold as it used to. -7c happens for long periods every year for sure.

Acacia phlebophylla will handle freezing temps like that..

Wow.
Is that as hard to germinate, grow, and find seeds to as I am reading?

A. phlebophylla will handle -7 but not for long periods and definitely not -16 or -31. Mt buffalo's lowest recorded temp is -7.2 which I think is night time temp. Unless you've tested or know someone who has tested otherwise.

oh ok.. I didn't realize it wouldn't handle down that low. I have a few juvenile phleb seedlings and they were not bothered by a few months of bitterly cold nights..some nights getting past -7 C.. lowest was -9.2 C. Frost pretty much every night. They went dormant and woke as spring came and are now doing well.. I would expect matured plants to be hardier.

Just wondering where you read that lowest temp? .. the reason I ask is because http://www.meteorology.com.au/ for example says the coldest temp ever where I live is -3.5 deg C but then says the lowest this year was -9.2. I know for fact that it regularly gets past -3.5 here during winter at night. In fact I have found records of it reaching -11.2 deg C.. For Mt Buffalo the same site says -7 C as lowest ever but then says just this year got to -7.2. Seems like coincidence that this site says the coldest temperatures this year for both locations were both below their coldest ever temp .. so feel like there is likely some sort of error.. -3.5 as lowest ever temp where I am is blatantly wrong. Unless I am understanding the information wrong..

Anyways.. -7 for long periods is of course a long time to go through.. but I still think its worth giving a go if you would really like to grow Acacia.. especially if protected in a greenhouse.

Another one to consider is Acacia retinodes.. successfully grown in Europe and also tolerates very cold conditions. 2 tests on plants grown in Germany (perhaps this speaks to the temp it can handle) yielded 0.5% DMT/NMT. Its also very fast growing